


I'll be your eyes

by malfoygrass (escailyy)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blind Character, Blindness, F/M, Falling In Love, I'm Bad At Tagging, True Love, a bit of legimency towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:16:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escailyy/pseuds/malfoygrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous prompted on tumblr: Drastoria permanently blind so here it is. Draco has been blinded for life, but that doesn't mean he's going to be alone for the rest of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be your eyes

Side effect from the dark mark removing ritual, that's what the Medi witches called it. Draco called it karma.

He was blind at twenty-one, no hope of recovery, no spell to undo the damage, no shortcuts, just the definitive diagnosis that he'd never be able to see again.

Draco heard his mother cry, he head his father almost bite the head off everyone in St Mungos, he heard the nurses, his friends, who came to visit, the families of other patients, he heard them all…but he couldn't see them.

He supposed that compared to the things he'd gone through, like the cruciatus or imperius, being blind for life was much better than the alternatives, but he couldn't bring himself to feel grateful, or angry or sad….that was the worst part, Draco's loss of sight affected him so much he lost touch with his emotions, the numbness was all-consuming, he felt dead.

Magical aid for the blind could only help so much, his walking stick (that automatically guided him through the house as soon as he whispered where or whom he wanted to reach) was his biggest crutch, as was the dark glasses that informed him the name of every person in his general vicinity, with those two things, he at least managed to keep his dignity after being discharged.

At his mother's urgency he'd hired a Braille tutor and learned to read it, eventually got a job as a Dark Arts Defence consultant for the Ministry's department of Litigation and just tried to build a life in general…But the numbness didn't leave, he still felt dead.

For the sake of his family, Draco went through the motions…until he met her.

Astoria Greengrass, he saw written in his mind as the magical lenses he carried detected someone sitting next to him, another set of words flashed in his mind: Greengrass family heiress

She didn't seem to notice him, sitting there in the waiting room of St Mungos, perhaps because she was bleeding and all too busy with whatever limb of hers was making that drip drip sound, the smell of blood was something so distinctive that it prickled at his sharp senses.

She was whimpering and Draco detected a vague scent of clove and vanilla when he felt her body slump to the side, into his shoulder, on instinct Draco held out his arms for her, realizing she was now unconscious, and held her before she fell. She was quite thin and small in stature, unlike Daphne whom he remembered from Hogwarts as being tall and athletic.

he let his hands seek out the source of her wound and tried calling a nurse with all his might, someone had used the cutting spell on her back and she needed help.

"We gave her enough potions to heal her, please stay Mr Malfoy, Miss Greengrass ought not to wake up alone and we have been unable to find her family" The medi witch said once he asked how the stranger…Astoria… was faring

That's how they met, in St Mungos, not the most romantic story to tell their children.

He learned right away when she woke up that she had the personality of a storybook princess and no common sense whatsoever when it came to her safety, she'd been volunteering in an orphanage when a Muggleborn wizard had tried hexing her, sure her bodyguards stopped the hit but the crazy dude apparently followed her and hexed her when her back was turned

"I don't understand, I've done nothing wrong" She whimpered "He called me a bigoted pureblood, my family isn't bigoted, we had no part in the war, all I was trying to do was help those children, I work with the Survivor Relief foundation"

"And this has never happened before?" Draco snorted in disbelief "Hard to believe considering how much bad press purebloods have been getting after the war"

"Of course it's happened before you git" The girl huffed and he could almost see her crossing her arms over her chest "I've been called names before, but this is the first time a Mud..Muggleborn has tried to hex me"

"Let me guess, you tried to report him but the idiot claimed you had your wand out first and the Aurors believed him because it's his word against yours"

"Yes! It was very frustrating how did you know?"

"I work with the Ministry's Litigation Department you'd be surprised how much easier it is to believe the penniless Muggleborn boy over the pureblood girl who goes around Diagon Alley with a set of bodyguards" he said dismissively sounding more than a bit annoyed "Plus it's happened to me from time to time" where it not for his heightened senses as a result of his blindness and his good reflexes, he'd be dead a long time ago

"I don't believe you, who would ever try to hex a blind man and claim self-defense?" The girl with the soft voice asked outraged

"Oh doll, Daddy doesn't take you out of the cupboard much does he?" Draco laughed and Astoria glared at the blond man, she couldn't exactly see his eyes as he was wearing those magical protective sunglasses blind people wore and darn glaring at a blind man made her feel silly as did sticking her tongue out to him, but she did it anyway "lots of people don't like the Malfoys, ex classmates and people my father pissed off mostly"

Suddenly he felt a small hand close around his "I'm sorry then" Astoria said and when she didn't move to take back her hand he unexpectedly squeezed it back

"Don't be" and neither commented on the fact he didn't release her hand until a healer came to check on her

"Will you come back?" Astoria suddenly asked when he got up to leave, she'd have to stay overnight in the hospital while her cuts healed and he'd made sure she had the best nurses possible (He was such a frequent visitor to St Mungos, he practically knew the staff on first name basis) "I mean, my family is vacationing in the Bermuda Triangle, I don't think I have lots of friends and my bodyguards are angry with me, I don't think people will even notice that I'm gone at work…it's just, I'm sort of alone…Merlin's Beard I'm blubbering, Greengrasses don't blubber, but Draco..will you, just, if you want to, will you come back?"

Draco knew he should say no, claim he had work or something, the last thing he needed was to make friends with someone as vulnerable as Astoria Greengrass, however pureblooded and Slytherin she might have been, she was still very much like a newborn thestrall that needed to learn about the world, Draco as a rule didn't do vulnerability, but for a blind man, he was too familiar with the tinge of loneliness that coloured her tone, he recognized it from his own voice when he answered "Yes, if you really want me to, I'll come back"

The next day when he entered her hospital room, he understood why Astoria Greengrass was put in Slytherin with his old school friend Daphne, because as soon as he got there he was assaulted with the sound of many of footsteps, apparently little Greengrass used her wiles to manipulate herself round the clock care and now had an army of people waiting on her hand and foot.

He should have been disgusted by the obvious way she played them all, instead he felt impressed. Not even he with his blindness and Malfoy charm back in the day he'd been interned in St Mungos he had gotten this kind of treatment and here she was sucking up to the head nurse with her little storybook princess act "All missing here I think is the flock of blue birds chirping and rushing to do your bidding" Draco remarked, his walking stick guiding him to Astoria's bedside easily "I see you are feeling better, or, rather, hear, because you understand I can't actually see"

Her responding laughter was warm and fairy-like, like the rest of her "the birds left already perhaps they sensed your presence"

The blind man snorted "Funny" but before he could sit down Astoria stopped him

"Healer Lakshmi can Draco get a more comfortable seat transfigured for him please, that plastic chair looks terribly hard and I don't think sitting there will be good for his back" again he heard the nurses shuffle around giving him all their attention with a chorus of "of course" and "oh my, poor lad"

"Impressive, they don't even realize you are manipulating them" Draco remarked once they were alone "underhanded but impressive, yet it's an act"

"How can you tell?" the soft voice dropped two octaves "I could be playing you too if that was the case"

"A good liar can fake many things doll but loneliness isn't one of them and yesterday at least, you were not lying, I can tell because your pretty voice comes out like a song today, when yesterday it was a sweet raspy mess"

"Takes one to know one I suppose" Astoria shot back, clearly angry that he'd been able to read her so fast "wait you think my voice is pretty?"

He didn't answer and she didn't push.

Strange how one cam feel at ease with a stranger of only you have things in common, Astoria wasn't a talker, despite the initial impression he had of her, she wasn't a babble queen, and she was a good listener tough and asked him about his life, his family, and friends. He felt that since his diagnosis he'd never talked so much about himself.

Astoria thought that for a blind man, Draco Malfoy saw more than people gave him credit for, she listened to his recounts of his days in Litigation court where he spent most of his time, complaining with his hands and making fascinating facial gestures that just made her want to memorize them all. He was handsome too, and tough Astoria couldn't see his eyes she'd bet her soul they were as beautiful as the rest of him.

He asked her out after she was discharged from her sick-bed and she accepted.

She on the other hand he came to learn, might be a Porcelain doll on the outside but she was made of steel on the inside, she was tiny and vulnerable and oh so cute according to all the gossip he heard from his mother, but baby Greengrass was cunning enough to use it to her advantage, in fact Draco was sure that the youngest Greengrass could sell shampoo to a bald man and get away with it

She was patient too, mostly when he got frustrated by his lack of sight, she held his hand tightly not saying anything and that was enough for him to calm down, and he also knew she was beautiful, because he'd gotten his mother to describe her face to him once, which brought the question, what would a girl of good breeding, charm and class like her want a good for nothing blind ex death eater like him?

Astoria had her insecurities too, Draco was strong and handsome, barely had to move a finger to get any girl despite his blindness, plus he'd gone through hell and back, survived the dark mark, turned his back to the dark lord in the last war and made a name for himself in the ministry as a reformed pureblood. He was sarcastic and funny and entirely too fascinating to leave alone, he might be blind but who could notice that when his smile made every reader of Witch Weekly faint and sigh.

What would he want with a girl like her? She wasn't strong or outgoing, or pretty like Daphne, she was quiet, not very brave and more often than not acted like a princess according to co-workers in the Greengrass foundation, kindness was her only saving grace and even then, why would a guy like Draco want to date a phony like her?

Eventually they had a row over it….

The fight wasn't pretty….

He got jealous, she got mad, neither was dating each other officially, which only made it worse, "I'm not your property" she said, "I'm not yours either" he shot back, more insults where traded, feelings got hurt.

He stormed out.

It took only a week for her to give in, and it would have taken him a day more, had she waited 24 hours to show up in his doorstep, yet when he opened the door and smelled her clove and vanilla scent permeating the air, he reached out blindly to take her into his arms "I'm sorry" he said holding her to him

"You see trough me" was the first thing she whispered back, warping her arms around him too "I'm a liar and a phony and a brat, but you see trough me" she mumbled into his chest "I don't care if you're blind for life, you do see, you see me, you see the parts of me nobody sees and it scares the crap out of me because I'm not used to people knowing the real me" Astoria confessed

"Do you think you are the only one?" Draco asked with a note of anger in his voice "I'm broken and jaded and have one hell of an attitude problem, but I like you Astoria, I like you too damned much to let you go, you understand me, you don't care if I'm blind or deaf or a bloody death eater, I've been numb for so freaking long but when I'm with you I feel things and it also scares me, because I don't know how to feel, I'm going to hurt you and you are going to run and it will be my fault, but if you leave I'll be left worse off than before"

"You like me" Astoria said ignoring the rest of his tirade and he could hear the surprise and elation in her voice "you really do like me"

"No Greengrass, I bloody love you, how pathetic is that for a blind guy?"

"It's not pathetic and while it's not the most romantic confession of all time at least now I know you won't reject me when I do this" and he felt her hand reach out for his hair to pull him down to her lips.

Then for the first time in years, Draco felt warmth, he was kissing her and it was a real kiss, not like the kisses he'd had before his blindness or even after, for all Astoria's expertise in lying, her kisses where as honest as they got, she kissed him with a mixture of uncertainty and joy that he could almost taste, and Merlin was she a good kisser. He would love to know what she was thinking

And then, he saw colors.

He saw his house, every detail, and his eyes and his nose….and it took him only a moment to realize he wasn't actually seeing those things, she was, and he was in Astoria's head.

A tiny moan escaped his lips and as if sensing him, Astoria sighed in pleasure, a thousand images of him and her running through her mind, of their dates, talks, arguments, he saw himself as she saw him, tall, dressed in black dress robes, with dark sunglasses smiling with a petite brunette witch, whom he assumed had to be her. But the kiss ended and the connection was broken

"That was my I-love-you-too" Astoria said breathless "Care to tell me what was that thing you did?"

"legimency by skin contact I think" Draco replied after some hesitation "Has someone ever told you that you are beautiful?" He'd only seen a glimpse of her in her mind and he already felt smitten

"Yes, but it's the first time I believe it" she replied sounding as tough she'd run a marathon "can you do it again?"

He felt himself smirk "Maybe" and with his hands he caressed every inch of her face, committing to his mind the shape of her features before touching her lips and kissing her again.

Eventually they stopped kissing and moved on to other things, but Draco never forgot the first time he saw himself trough Astoria's eyes. She never forgot either.

It was trough her eyes he first saw his mother's face again, his father's pride when he announced his intention to marry, he saw autumn leaves and constellations, the beauty of a snowed in Malfoy Estate and trough her eyes one day he would see the face of his newborn son, when he was with her, he didn't need his eyes to see the love she had for him. He never tried skin contact Legimency with anyone else, this was his and Astoria's secret alone.

They spoke their vows in a lavish ceremony (as befitting the union of the ancient lines of Malfoy and Greengrass) but they spoke vows nobody could understand, after that Draco always smiled when he felt the braille inscription in his wedding ring. 

it said "If you'll be my home I'll be your eyes…forevermore"

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to send me a prompt I'm open to them as long as they are drastoria, shoot me a message on my malfoygrass tumblr, here or anywhere really...I'll reply.


End file.
